bzprpgfandomcom-20200213-history
Staff Plot - 2012 Year
The Second Great Prophecy was told shortly after the fall of the First Toa to Makuta's dark hand. It was conveyed to Takua by the Great Spirt in his escape from Kini-Nui, and with wisdom, the Chronicler kept these hallowed words close to himself, relayed them to no one, not even the other members of his company. The seven Matoran escaped before Makuta could find them and smite them immediately. Takua, as though guided by the hand of Mata Nui, inexplicably led his group to a hidden location that he could not have discovered on his own. This was the Keeping Place; Takua knew its name because Mata Nui had told it to him. To the others, it looked simply like a sheer cliff, but Takua knew that it was more; a stone plate in the middle of the edge told him this much. On it was carved a series of clues in the written form of the Bird Speech, dialect of the island's winged creatures and the language in which Nuju speaks. Somehow, Takua was able to understand the writing. Takua thought for a long while, and the other Matoran of his company waited in tense silence. Finally, Takua told his companions that, even though the Mata were dead or worse, a new chance for heroes existed. It lay here. He told them that they must help him keep the secret and do as he said, and bid all the company to stand out of earshot. One by one, he called them forth and gave them one of the clues to remember and carry. Takua found a piece of flat shale, and asked Hafu the stone-carver to chisel into it a series of symbols that Hafu did not understand. It was the words of the Second Great Prophecy that resonated in Takua, but which he knew he would soon forget, written in the Bird Speech. He also had Hafu copy down the same symbols as were on the stone marker of the cliff: the first six clues. Surely enough, Takua forgot the passage and rhyme of the prophecy within minutes, as he forgot the clues that were not his. Mata Nui had made him forget, so that in the event of Takua's capture, the enemy would not discover all. The company knew that they must disperse, lest they be too easy to kill and take. Takua gave the slab with the prophecy to Taipu, thinking that a carved stone would be safest and least obtrusive in the deep dark mine of Onu-Koro. And so, the Matoran tried to return to their daily lives; all save Takua, who vanished into concealment. Aside from the Chronicler, they would not be successful. Makuta unleashed the Rahkshi for the first time shortly after the fall of the Toa Mata, to exercise his power and further discourage the Matoran from revolt, but he quickly retracted them, and continued to breed the foul things over the following years. At the present time, he has a countless army of them waiting to be ordered about. In secret, Makuta built in his dark lair a massive and impregnable Vault, in which he stowed his treasures and other objects of power. In the innermost layer of the Vault, Makuta kept the First Toa’s Essence Stones, objects of great power that contained a large portion of the essence of their donors. Makuta also crafted for himself a servant. This servant was the Toa of Shadow Heuani. Heuani's origins are unknown; what is known is that Makuta granted him the most savage and powerful of elements, immense physical strength, speed, and agility, near-invincibility, and a wily, twisted mind. With both Heuani and his Rahkshi contained and reserved, Makuta granted the island a period of relative peace, but for the fact that he began to summon to the island foreign beings: Skakdi, Vortixx, and others, any and all Makuta believed had evil tendencies and could bend to his whim. In response, the Great Spirit turned scores of Matoran to Toa, hoping to counter the surge of corruption, but none of these forced Toa had the same power or goodness in them as had the Mata. The island flourished cautiously under Makuta's watchful eye. Taipu, afraid by the peace, gave the shale tablet to Whenua and went into hiding alone. When Makuta began to kill and vanish away the members of the Chronicler's Company, though, and when these Matoran revealed that they knew clues to some grand riddle, Takua decided that the time had to be now to act upon the words of his prophecy. He found those still alive of his group and secretly told them to not reveal their clues to anyone. Then, unseen and unfelt by the darkness, Takua managed to break into the Vault and steal the six Essence Stones. Makuta quickly discovered the theft. He was enraged, and alerted Heuani, ordering him to find out who had done this and to retrieve the masks. Makuta sent troops of Rahkshi around the island to all of the safe houses and secret places in his extensive memory to look for the masks. On these searches, the Rahkshi occasionally ran into resistance, and huge battles ensued. The populace of the island was once more reminded of the vast power of these deadly servants. But the search was fruitless; none of the stones were found by Makuta’s minions. At the same time, Heuani managed to capture Kapura, one of the only two of the Company aside from Takua still alive, and wrangled his clue out of him, as well as how there were six clues. Heuani rejoiced and killed Kapura, so that the dead Matoran's clue would not reach ears aside from Makuta's. A group of Matoran, headed by the Matoran Stannis, had been following the trail of clues left by the ex-Company. Whenua and Stannis conversed, and when Stannis asked about the whereabouts of Taipu, Whenua said that he did not know, but revealed the tablet. He told Stannis of how he'd conferred with the other Turaga about this tablet, but only Nuju understood what it meant, and Nuju refused to translate the words, for fear that Makuta would discover them. Makuta never bothered to learn the languages of the beautiful creatures, and as such the tablet was as much indecipherable to him as anyone else. Only Nuju could read the Bird Speech; after all, he spoke it. Whenua decided to trust Stannis, and gave him the tablet. Stannis and his group travelled up to Ko-Koro to try and weasel its meaning out of Nuju. At last, Nuju consented to translate the tablet. In doing so, he made the Second Great Prophecy comprehensible to Stannis, and uncovered the remaining of the six clues. But before Nuju could relay these clues to Stannis, he was seized by Makuta, pulled down into the earth by darkness. All across the island, Heuani abducted the other Turaga, using everything from subtle trickery to outright force to snatch them away. When all six were gathered in Mangaia, Makuta forced the first of the Parakuka upon them, thereafter sending the Turaga into a deep sleep, the slugs latched to their backs. Makuta told Heuani that the militant pro-Matoran group, the Island Liberation Front, was planning to attack the Nui-Rama Hive in Le-Koro, and that Heuani would lead Makuta’s forces in the battle. Heuani, with Turaga in tow, departed for the Hive. In the subsequent battle, the ILF slowly but surely battered away at the Hive, killing masses of Nui-Rama, thinning the seemingly endless swarm of deadly bugs. This swarm, and the battle itself, was however only meant only to buy time for the Parakuka-hosting Turaga to awaken and activate. When the Turaga awoke, they changed into horrible creatures that fought blindly against their own people, striking a crucial moral blow against the ILF and the island as a whole. But soon, the energy rush of the Parakuka died off, and the Turaga were subdued. Heuani left the hive, and it fell to fire. Once the hive was destroyed, a tall obelisk of black stone stood in the middle of its embers. At the base of the obelisk were six notches, and the words “hidden lines;” Other than these markings, it was blank. But at the same time as the hive battle, another search was taking place. Takua, at last emerged into the world once more, furtively visited six Matoran and told them that they had been chosen by the Great Spirit to go on a quest of great magnitude; it was the duty of these Matoran to recover the six Essence Stones. The leader of the group was Stannis, who had been earlier named by Nuju as the Wanderer. Stannis and his five new companions – Reordin, Sulov, Oreius, Aurax, and Lepidran – were christened the "Wanderer's Company,” and at Takua’s lead journeyed to the location of the first Essence Stone.